Gilas has to score the big baskets
As the Fiba Asia tournament unfolds, most of our basketball-loving countrymen have expressed their concerns about the chances of making it to the top three.
They say a shot at the title is a wishful thought although with our homecourt advantage again, who knows maybe a repeat of the triumph in 1973 may just happen.
But so much has changed in the basketball scene since Robert Jaworski, Jimmy Mariano, Manuel Paner, Mon Fernandez and company won the tournament 40 years ago and a ticket to the “Mundo Basketball” World Championships in Puerto Rico in 1974. China is now part of the Asian mix after refusing to participate in world sports events for ages. But when they did join, it was like an avalanche of giants and extremely nimble athletes who could compete with anyone in the world.
China has dominated the Asian basketball scene not only with giants but also with a sense of purpose. Through the years, their hoop teams would travel overseas and learn the best practices of the game in Europe and the US. Even with a professional basketball league later on and some of their players like Yao Ming getting a chance to play in the NBA, China has kept its national team basically together along with a strong pool of candidates.
The Middle East countries have also learned how to play the game. With more of their citizens growing to basketball heights and a few naturalized players getting the go-signal to don their national uniforms, countries like Iran, Jordan and Lebanon have acquired enough savvy to move away from the years when they awkwardly dribbled the ball or passed incessantly like they were setting up a football goal attempt.
China, Korea and the Middle Eastern countries have placed a premium as well on outside shooting. That’s why you’ll always find sweet shooting deadshots and even big men who can shoot in their teams. Coach Chot Reyes and Gilas Pilipinas will have to closely watch how well the other teams share the ball and create openings with crisp passing and dribble drives with kick outs to open shooters at the last moment. This is in sharp contrast to the post up game of the NBA where the ball gets dumped as a first option to the center and the offense emanates from there.
Reyes has been trying to instill a move towards a more dribble-drive oriented offense where the skilled guards of the Philippines don’t force the ball inside and hope that the forwards use their shooting abilities or athletic skills to wiggle out of trouble.
Hopefully, this approach will create openings for shooters like Jeff Chan, Larry Fonacier and Gary David.
They say that luck and breaks in sports are created by those who work hard.
Knowing Reyes’ familiar mantra of “no team will ever outwork us,” this current Philippine team will indeed toil hard to create the openings and baskets so that the hometown crowd will have points to relish and roar about.
